


Temporary Haven

by bomberqueen17



Series: The Lost Kings [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Shattered Empire
Genre: F/M, Meet the Family, Pregnancy, Relationship Negotiations, The DamFam, actually they're just chickens, and a farm, farm life, i'm not that imaginative, introducing Kes's mom, pregnancy symptoms, real chickens are actually lizards, seriously it's just a whole flock of OCs, space chickens, the dameron ranch, wedding stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8284991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: Shara meets Kes's entire extended family, and sets foot on an actual farm for the first time in her life. Sento faces a life-threatening caffeine withdrawal situation.





	1. Chapter 1

 

Shara disembarked from the somewhat-rickety little landspeeder with a very careful polite neutral expression on her face. Kes had been so nervous for so long that she felt like she’d already expected this, that the place he was taking them was important to him but was not in any way impressive in any conventional sense. She’d really thought she was prepared.

But it looked like a holonovela— it really looked like the Rustic Countryside setting in a holonovela. A sprawling dwelling made of several distinct structures haphazardly bolted together, decorated here and there with brightly-colored paint in solid blocks and delicate patterns, sat inside a fence clearly constructed of salvage, with wildly-lush plants, some bedecked with flowers, others impenetrably green, climbing trellises or escaping garden beds. Small bright-feathered lizard-creatures cackled and clucked and flapped around on one side of the fence.

And a woman stood in the open door of the house, quite clearly having heard them coming and gone to tidy herself up; she was drying her hands on her apron, shaking it out so it lay nicely over her brightly-multicolored skirt.

She was a beautiful woman, small and sturdy like Norasol, her skin medium-brown and her face shaped like Kes’s, but more so— hooded eyes, high cheekbones, a sharply-crested nose standing out from a round smooth face. She was middle-aged at least, and moved with a hint of a limp, but her hair was a uniform solid black, untouched by gray, smooth and pulled back into a knot.

There was no question that this was Lita Dameron. She stood at the top of the steps, hands folded at her waist, head tilted a little downward, watching them with a small smile and an unmistakable sharp attention. Even at this distance it was plain that she was missing nothing of their reactions.

“What a place,” Sento said, but he was smiling, and he looked delighted. Shara couldn’t tell if he meant it sincerely or not.

Shara glanced over and Kes was smiling; she rather thought he had made eye contact with his mother, but neither of them spoke. He turned to Shara and said, “Well. It’s not much, but it’s home.”

“Are you kidding?” Sento said. “This place looks great.” Shara still couldn’t tell if he meant it seriously. She’d never seen anything like this in her life. The feathered lizards had beady eyes and scaled yellow feet with claws, and one had flapped loudly up to the top of the fence and was perched there staring at them with one eye at a time.

Norasol laughed. “It is pretty great,” she said. She parked the speeder, and without a glance or hesitation she jumped down and went to the gate. She wasn’t running, but she seemed to be hurrying a little. Shara had a moment of thinking she’d run and fling herself into Lita’s arms; she wasn’t entirely sure what their relationship was.

But Norasol moved sedately, and gave Lita a gentle embrace, kissed her on the cheek, and leaned in to speak with her, after the manner of an affectionate old friend.

Kes had turned and begun unloading the speeder, and Shara wondered at that a little bit. In his place surely she’d’ve run to her mother and made much of her and been made much of in return. She _had_ , with her Papa. Kes clearly didn’t have the same relationship with his mother, for all he’d spoken highly of her.

Shara shouldered her bag, and Sento made to take it from her. “Papa,” she said, annoyed, and he rolled his eyes at her, but let her carry it, because he had his own to get.

 

_____

 

“Who are these visitors?” Lita asked Norasol, very quietly, after satisfying herself that the other woman looked well and had clearly taken no harm from her journey.

“That is for Kes to explain,” Norasol said.

Lita had already taken them in, and noted that surely the middle-aged man was the father of the girl, who was stunningly beautiful and about Kes’s age. “Ah,” she said, and a great many things made sense, then. Norasol had mentioned a Particular Friend that Kes was spending time with, and had seemed sort of dour about it, in that way that meant she was pleased in the moment, but expecting disaster to ensue.

Lita could see why. This girl was definitely beautiful, definitely a spacer, definitely not the kind of woman who was going to be happy doing grubby planetside farming work. The kind of girl Kes was likely to throw his heart at and wind up disappointed when she clearly wouldn’t want the kinds of things he did.

“Is the matter concluded, surely?” Lita asked.

“Kes knows better, surely,” Norasol answered, with an unmistakable dire warning.

Lita smiled at her. “Surely,” she said. “Well, if she brought her father, that’s a good case.” And with that she kissed Norasol on the cheek and turned toward the guests, leaving Norasol to go into the house and see who else was there.

 

_____

 

Kes didn’t miss the fact that Norasol was having an extensive murmured conversation with his mother. Neither Sento nor Shara had seemed to betray much of a reaction either way at the compound, which to Kes’s eye after an absence now looked much more ramshackle than it had when he’d left. It was still home, he wasn’t doubting that for a moment, and he was so glad to see it, but Shara’s obviously-careful lack of reaction didn’t do a lot to allay his nervousness.

He unloaded the three containers of Sento’s and one of Shara’s straight into the speeder’s garage with the grav-sled they kept in there; the speeder could sit out for now, until they decided what to do. Sento came to help him, but he waved him off. “No,” he said, “go on up to the house, I’ll be right there, I just need to get this parked.”

It only occurred to him belatedly, as he winched a tarp over the speeder, how sharply his homecoming contrasted with Shara’s delighted drop-everything greeting of her father. He was greatly looking forward to speaking with his mother, certainly, but he wasn’t going to run into her arms and expect her to drop everything to catch him. There was always work to do, and you had to do it.

 

______

 

Shara trailed behind her father a little bit as they went up the steps, leaving Kes to sort the luggage. She cast a lingering glance backward; surely he’d want to do the introductions? But he’d waved them off, so she went with Sento up the steps, and it was Sento who said, “You must be Lita Dameron.”

“I am,” the woman said, and her tiny smile intensified just a little. “But I am afraid I was not told your names, only to expect two guests.”

“Sento Bey,” Sento said, “and this is my daughter, Shara. Shara Bey.”

Lita smiled even wider, but still did not show any teeth, in contrast to Kes, whose smiles were nearly blinding. “Sento and Shara,” she said. “I am greatly pleased to meet you. Welcome to our home. Please, won’t you let Norasol show you in? I would, but I want to wait here and greet my son, I have missed him terribly.”

“He wouldn’t let me help with the luggage,” Sento said.

That got a tiny flash of teeth in a fleeting grin. “Kes is very particular,” Lita said, unmistakably fond. And in that moment, Shara had her first glimmer of hope that maybe she could understand this woman.

 

____

 

Lita was still standing at the door when Kes picked up the last two duffel bags on the speeder and looked up toward the house. She saw him and put her hands on her hips. “I am waiting for you,” she called down. “Are you finished messing around or should I grow even older?”

Kes laughed, and bounded up the steps to her. “Mama,” he said, “you’re the one who told me never to leave anything for later that I could finish now.”

She smiled, holding out her arms, and Kes set down the duffel bags and folded his arms around her and tucked his head down next to her neck.

“Oh,” she murmured, “my good boy, I have missed you so much.”

“I missed you a lot, too, Mama,” he said. “There’s been— there’s a lot to talk about, Mama.”

“I can see that,” Lita said. “But before we get too into that, I just want to hold you a minute and be glad that you have come back to me.”

 

__________________

 

 

Instinct and habit were funny things, Kes thought a little vaguely as he came to himself. He’d been offworld for months and months, his body completely acclimated to artificial gravity and the total lack of biorhythms of the space station, but Kes found himself standing in the barn doorway, eyes unfocused, as dawn’s gray light crept up the eastern sky, with a feed bucket in his hand and Marita laughing at him.

“Xacristo, Kes,” she said, “you just got back, sleep in.”

“Gaios were singing,” he said, referring to the male chanticlos, whose obnoxious call heralded dawn and the start of the working day. That had to have been what it was that had woken him. He didn’t remember waking up.

Marita stared at him for a moment, and he blinked himself a little more awake, and realized he’d probably slurred his words. “The… the crowing,” he said, a little feebly.

“Kes,” she said, laughing, “you’re such a dipshit. Go back to bed, honey. We have enough people to do chores without you.”

He blinked; as he woke up more, he was profoundly disoriented. “I don’t remember getting out of bed,” he mused. He looked down at himself in sudden alarm, but he was wearing clothes after all, an old set of coveralls that he’d always left hung by the door, they’d probably stayed there the whole time he was gone. Because he wore them for chores every day.

Marita leaned in and kissed his face, patting his other cheek. She was a cousin of some description, related to Norasol, and he’d known her his whole life. He’d even assisted Norasol in delivering her daughter, a couple of years back-- sometimes everyone was offworld, and those still left had to get by on their own, so he’d assisted Norasol more than once in midwifing. He had a pretty strong notion that he knew more about how babies were born than Shara did, and he didn’t look forward to that process of discovery.

“You’re a good boy, Kes,” she said, “but we’ve got chores sorted out this morning. Go back and take care of your guests. Norasol was very mysterious about it all, by the way-- who are those people?”

They’d gotten in pretty late the night before. Marita had been putting her daughter to bed already, Kes remembered. “Oh,” he said. “Sento and Shara. Pilots. Nice people.”

“I gathered,” she said, smirking at him. It wasn’t fair, he usually had kind of a rough transition to consciousness in the morning and it was grossly exacerbated by the travel-lag. “But why are they visiting?”

“Hopefully they’re staying,” Kes said. He rubbed his face. He was too awake now, he’d be up for the day. He bent and picked up the feed bucket again. “How many chanticlos we got now?”

“Kes, Ori’s big enough to help now, he’s probably already fed them,” Marita said.

“I know he hasn’t,” Kes answered. How did he know that? Right, he’d looked at the shoes by the door. In his sleep. Auto-pilot was disconcerting to consider in retrospect. “Boots still inside.”

Marita laughed. “Well. Teenagers. Hard to get going in the morning.” She looked over at the feed bin, which was a huge salvaged corrugated metal thing of uncertain provenance, propped on makeshift supports, with a hand-operated sliding door to dispense feed into buckets. The buckets, all odd-sized salvage, were stacked next to it in haphazard rows, but usually their arrangement made some kind of sense. Kes had a method, Marita had a method, Hanzo had a method, and you could tell which animals needed what by the arrangement, unless someone else had stacked them last and paid no attention, which was often the case. “I think the chanticlos take six buckets now.”

Kes whistled. “That’s a lot.”

“Yeah, we’ve been too long without processing,” Marita said. She meant slaughtering them for meat.

“Oh,” Kes said, making a disgusted face, “you mean you were saving them for me.”

“Well,” she said brightly, starting to fill three more buckets. Kes, on autopilot, had already filled three. “Since you’re home now, you might as well.”

Nobody liked to be the one who had to do the actual killing. But ever since Kes’s hands had gotten too big to fit easily inside the carcasses to clean them out, he always ended up stuck doing it. There was just something about having to deal the killing stroke that was unnerving, no matter how stupid the chanticlos were.

“Ugh,” he said. But the deep-freeze conservators had to be nearly empty now, they’d need to get a batch done soon surely. And they sold the excess for processing into protein rations, it was an important source of income for them. “Give me a couple days at least, hey?”

“We got time,” Marita said. “Think our guests will want to help?”

Kes froze midway through loading two of the buckets onto the back of the hauler they used to get around for chores. It had a cranky repulsor that meant it always lurched sort of diagonally, but they’d never gotten around to fixing it very well; it was so rusty that the frame was going to fall apart at some point so there was little point in repairing it. “They’re spacers,” he said, thinking with horror of the Beys interacting with livestock in any way. He would lay actual credits that Shara had never seen a live chanticlo in her life before this. She’d certainly stared at them with enough alarm when they’d arrived.

To be fair, chanticlos were pretty unnerving if you weren’t used to them. “They’re not-- I don’t think--” He faltered. “Maybe we can put them in charge of lunch.” But he didn’t imagine either of them even knew how to cook.

“Everyone helps out,” Marita said, mock-severely. “You’re not trying to impress this girl, are you?”

Kes loaded the rest of the filled buckets onto the hauler instead of answering that. He hadn’t failed to notice how very carefully polite Shara was being, how neither of the Beys had commented on anything about the living situation. He’d expected it’d be weird here, for them, but he hadn’t wanted to think about it too hard. There was nothing to be done. He was saved by Ori stumbling out the back door, trying and failing to get his foot shoved into a boot. Ori’s shirt was on backwards and his hair was sticking straight up. “I got it, Mari, I got it, don’t be mad,” he said muzzily.

“Kes just crossed half the galaxy and has slept for like three hours and he’s way ahead of you,” Marita said tartly.

“It’s okay, Ori,” Kes said, ruffling the boy’s hair. Ori was taller now, and gangly, his pudgy-baby torso stretched out into teenagery gawkishness. Ori loved Kes and had always followed him like a puppy. He gazed up adoringly at Kes now, and Kes pulled him into a hug; he’d seen him the night before, but there’d been a lot going on. “I got you, baby boy.”

“I can do it,” Ori said earnestly, and he wasn’t such a teenager he couldn’t wrap his arms around Kes and hug him properly, snuggling in against his shoulder sweetly.

“You can help me do it,” Kes said. “I know you’re not lazy. It happens, when you’re growing, that your body’s clock gets all screwy whether you go offworld or not.” He put his tongue out at Marita. “It doesn’t help when the old ladies are mean to you about it.” Marita had been merciless to Kes when he’d been Ori’s age. He let Ori go with one last hair-ruffle, and Ori grinned up at him, and stars, he wasn’t a kid anymore at all, his face was starting to look like a grown man’s.

“Old ladies,” Marita said. She was only five years older than Kes was. “Old ladies! You’d better watch yourself, talking like that.”

“If you prank me,” Kes said, “you know I’ll get you back.” He leaned over and banged on the water tank strapped into the hauler, trying to gauge how full it was; he’d put the hose into it on autopilot too, and it had been filling for the whole time they’d been standing there. It sounded full, so he hopped up and flipped the hose switch off, pulling it out before swinging back down.

Marita took the hose with a roll of her eyes, stepping into the garage to put the hose away near the spigot. “You think you’ll get me back,” she said. “But what’s really going to happen is that you’re going to need a favor from me and you’re going to be so so so sorry you were mean to me and one of these days, I won’t do whatever it is you need, and then where will you be?”

“Reminding you that I literally pulled your child out of you,” Kes said, “don’t give me this owing-you-favors bullshit!” He had; his hands had been stronger than Norasol’s, and the baby had needed turning. Marita squeaked with indignant laughter.

“You can hardly expect me to repay that favor,” she said.

Kes stared at her for a moment. “Not directly, no,” he said, and it suddenly wasn’t funny, because he’d thought he was completely at peace with the fact that he was going to have a baby, but now he didn’t really know how to feel about it.

Ori had already climbed into the hauler. Kes turned and climbed in, and shoved him over on the bench because no way was he letting Ori drive this thing with him a passenger, “No fucking way,” and it gave him a moment. But Marita had come out and was standing next to the hauler.

“Not _directly_ ,” she said, putting her hand on the side panel next to the _Say No To Spice!_ sticker someone had put there probably a decade ago, covering up part of the vehicle’s old registration markings. There was a small collection of stickers, but most of the rest were so faded it was impossible to tell what they’d been.

Kes flipped the ignition switch, feathering the fuel-feed pedal just right so the starter would catch out of long muscle memory. “Be a neat trick,” he said, but he couldn’t make eye contact with her. Ori was messing with the hauler’s audio deck, which had never worked but it looked like someone had fairly recently tried to modify. Probably Ori himself.

“Kes,” Marita said, “who is the girl?”

The audio deck screeched loudly, startling everyone, and then resolved into a terrible pop hit Kes had heard ad nauseam in the loading docks of two or three different worlds now. “ _Baby, baby_ ,” the singer wailed, and the chorus swelled, “ _won’t you be miiiiiiine?_ ”

“Are you going out with her or did you knock her up?” Marita demanded, leaning in.

“You know I can’t talk to you about it before I talk to Lita about it!” Kes said, exasperated and a little stung.

“Xacristo,” Marita squeaked, letting go of the hauler’s side panel so Kes could put it into gear.

“Don’t you even fucking start,” Kes said, pleading a little. “Don’t fuck this up, Marita.”

“I won’t,” Marita said, relenting all at once as the hauler lurched. She backed away a little more. “Oh, Kes, I won’t.”

He looked her over for a moment, then thumped his hand on the side panel, a kind of thanks and punctuation all in one. She gathered her long overshirt’s tail up in her hands like a skirt apron, drying her hands off, and waved as the hauler lurched into motion.

 

“Are you really going out with that girl?” Ori asked, as the audio deck cut out. You couldn’t really hear it over the growl of the hauler’s engines anyway, which was why nobody had bothered fixing it before.

Kes set the hauler carefully down next to the chanticlos’ enclosure; it wasn’t far from the house, but it was too far to get plumbing run to it, and they moved it every so often, so the hauler was necessary to get the water out to them. “Yeah,” he said.

“She’s real pretty,” Ori offered shyly.

“She is,” Kes said. “I don’t know if she’s really— cut out for the likes of me, but.” He shrugged. “If she says she wants to, then I’ll believe her.”

“Does she want to?” Ori asked, dropping to the ground and scrambling up behind to start hauling out feed buckets. Kes started up the pump, which kicked out blue smoke the way it always had done. It was worse, he’d have to take a look at it. He was terrible at mechanical stuff, but really only a couple of them had any mechanical inclination, and those few were in high demand for offworld jobs and didn’t come home much. At least he was better at maintenance than Marita, who was the only one who was consistently home lately.

“She said she did,” Kes said, “and brought her dad, but they still have to talk to Lita, you know?”

“I don’t know how this works,” Ori confessed. “Have you-- I mean, did you take her on any dates or like, make out or anything?”

Kes laughed, and laughed, and got the hose over to the waterer before the pump kicked out too much water. “Yes, Ori,” he said, “we’ve been seeing one another.”

“I don’t know,” Ori said, “I don’t know what you all get up to offworld!”

“We’ve become good friends,” Kes said, “but you can be good friends with someone and still not want to live with them and their crazy relatives.” He’d been sixteen when he’d had his first girlfriend; he supposed Ori had a little ways to go yet, but if nobody else did he was gonna have to give the kid a talk. He probably should anyway; Ori’s dad was one of the mechanically-inclined and was pretty booked solid on gigs, and his mom had died a couple years back, and so it was probably up to Kes if he didn’t want the poor child to get his worldly knowledge from Norasol. He jerked his chin at the feed buckets. “You wanna fill the feeders or collect eggs?”

“I’ll fill the feeders,” Ori said. He was already handling the buckets as it was, so it was a sensible division of labor.

“Then watch the hose, and I’ll go in,” Kes said, and grabbed two of the collection baskets off the back of the hauler.

“There’s a broody gatina in the second-last box on the lower right,” Ori called out. “Leave her alone, those are gonna hatch soon.”

The eggs filled both baskets, and he woke up a little more as he collected them, in the familiar smell and sounds of the coop. The chanticlos were a fixture of his life, and he’d spent a lot of time chasing them as a kid, and petting them, and giving them names. He wasn’t as sentimental now, but he still let himself stroke the feathers of the ones who didn’t saunter out of reach, speaking softly to them.

Shara was going to think this was crazy. She didn’t know anything about planetside life. She was pretty and sophisticated and liked fashion and cities and flying. There was nothing here she’d like. She’d think he was weird. He knew he’d mentioned a little of what it was like here, but there was no way she was really prepared for this.

One of the gatinas pecked at him as he nudged her aside to get at the eggs in the box. There were only a couple, she wasn’t brooding them yet, but she was objecting anyway. He picked her up and tucked her under his arm. “C’mon, silly little,” he said, and she went docile the way they generally did if you held their wings, letting him carry her. It wasn’t much slower, working with one hand, and he carried her out with the second basket.

Ori laughed to see him holding a bird. “Gonna take her home and introduce her to your boo?”

Kes imagined it, imagined carrying a calm but volatile chanticlo into the room and waking Shara up with it. There was a rule that livestock didn’t come indoors, and it was a good rule. The thing would freak out and shit everywhere. “That’s a terrible idea,” he said.

“Maybe when the chikitos hatch,” Ori said.

“Start her off gentle,” Kes said, laughing at the thought, and released the gatina so he could pick up the other egg basket. The bird flapped away in an undignified scramble, making a racket as she did so, and some of the other birds took up the call, cackling at one another in concern.

Kes cackled back at them. When he was a kid, he’d thought he could understand them, and could answer back. It was true that their calls had pretty easy-to-distinguish meanings, and you could fool them sometimes by making the right noises. But it wasn’t the same thing as talking to them; they were too different, and couldn’t really understand humans at all. Which was just as well, because surely if they were any smarter they’d figure out that humans ate them.

He loaded the egg baskets carefully into the back, and shut off the pump, because the waterer was about full. “We gotta process pretty soon,” he said. “These guys are crowded.”

“We figured, when you were back and when Uni and Tito come back, and Laka after that, we’d have enough people,” Ori said.

“How long has it been just you and Marita?” Kes asked, coiling the hose back up.

“Not long,” Ori said. “Garzi was here, and Hanto and Kai. I started helping out while they were all still around, so I’d have time to learn the grown-up stuff, now that I’m big enough.” He seemed a little proud of it. “I’m almost as tall as Lita now!”

“And stronger,” Kes said, a little wistfully. Lita had been injured as a very young woman, and she still couldn’t lift heavy things. He wasn’t clear on whether it had stunted her growth. She was just short, maybe.

He’d gotten his height from his father, who’d been big by all accounts. Kes remembered him as a huge person, but he himself been quite small when he’d last seen the man. He’d never really before this moment truly thought about how bitter it must have been for Molo to have been so effectively barred from seeing him. He knew that hadn’t been Molo’s choice, strictly.

Molo had died alone and disavowed, and it had been necessary, but perhaps the worst part now was that Kes had never thought about it before. He’d been Ori’s age when they’d heard. He hadn’t cried. It had made no difference to his life.

He really, really didn’t want that to be true for his own son.

“I’m getting pretty strong,” Ori said proudly, and jumped back up into the hauler. “And I can drive this thing!”

“I bet you can,” Kes said, “but I’m not going to let you, because I don’t want to die this way.”

 

______

 

 

Shara woke up profoundly disoriented. She was in a room she didn’t recognize, and it took her a few moments to work out that the strange heaviness suffusing her limbs was not that she was dying, but was planetary gravity, an unfamiliar planet. And also, right, she was pregnant, which meant that everything was exhausting and she had to pee.

She groped next to the bed to find her water bottle, and found a cup instead. She picked it up and there was a scrap of flimsi sort of stuck to it, caught in the condensation, and she peeled it off and squinted at it. Norasol’s writing, the usual; it just said _drink this_.

Norasol. Right. Planetside. She was on their home planet.

She sat up carefully to drink. She was alone in a little room, a tiny cubby of a room that was probably originally made of a shipping container of some kind, welded onto another one. Her father was next door, and remembering that settled her considerably. Kes was down the hall, which was sort of strange.

But it had been clear that her status as a current, or even potential, mate for Kes either had not been mentioned or was not being acknowledged. There were formal things that had to be done and Norasol was insisting on them. Shara was completely unclear on the entire concept, and Kes wasn’t going to tell her because it was bad luck, so she had to somehow just… figure it out.

Great.

It wasn’t like she’d really wanted to snuggle with Kes anyway, they’d been on top of one another for the whole journey, and while she didn’t mind him in close quarters, it was kind of nice to have a bed to herself. Because sharing a bed but having no privacy had been, above all else, frustrating. If nothing else, she could probably haul him in here at some point and have her wicked way with him just to tide her over; this tiny closet had a door that shut, and that was all she wanted.

Mm. She could do with a good fuck just now. He’d been so sweetly solicitous the whole trip, and they’d landed just as the sun was going down. The sun here suited him so beautifully, kissed his skin and caught highlights in his hair and his eyes. He was so pretty. It was worth the hassle of being ground-bound to see him like that. Mmm. And planetside you could have real water in your shower, most planets, and she loved that. It would be glorious to fuck Kes in a shower, with the hot water sliding over his gorgeous golden skin— 

Mmm.

No, no, no, she had to pee, and she ought to get up and check on what was going on. Outside she could see that it was getting light, and that actually meant something on a planet.

Papa was still asleep, with his door shut. She trod the familiar path to the ‘fresher— gone were the days when she could sleep through a night without finding the facilities— and did her business, washed her face, fixed her hair. Getting dressed was a hassle, because her normal clothes were now to the point where she couldn’t ignore that they didn’t really fasten properly, but she wasn’t mentally prepared for the looser stuff she’d bought and packed away.

Also, almost all of that was still packed, and she didn’t fancy going in her nightshirt to dig through the crates in the— wherever Kes had stowed them.

So she found the last pair of trousers she had that still did up (besides her dirty travel-stained ones, which she wasn’t putting back on for any reason ever until they’d been cleaned), and a shirt with a forgiving cut, and made herself presentable. It was warm here, warmer than on a ship or station, so she didn’t have to worry that her jacket didn’t do up anymore.

But no shoes. No shoes indoors. She felt naked in her socks.

 

Lita was in the kitchen with Norasol. Norasol was in a dress, which Shara had never seen her wear before-- a practical-looking dress, but it had a brightly-colored collar and a flaring skirt, and Norasol’s feet were bare, her hair caught up carelessly. She looked younger, stronger, and somehow, more herself.

“Good morning,” Norasol said, as cheerful as Shara had ever heard her. “How are you?”

“I’m well,” Shara said. “I found the drink you left me, thank you.”

“Just something to cut down on the space-lag,” Norasol said to Lita, as if it were an important observation. “You know.”

Was Shara not supposed to be pregnant, she wondered suddenly. Was she not supposed to let on? Was it a secret? She was glad she’d worn trousers; a tunic might have been too much of a signal. Were they going to be in trouble, not having married first? She knew it mattered, in some cultures.

“I know how it is,” Lita said.

Norasol wouldn’t lie, surely, to Lita. Now that she really saw them together, it was obvious that Norasol and Lita were lovers, at least on some level. Maybe not actively sexual, but they were partners in some way. At the very least, Lita had surely brushed Norasol’s hair for her, or something; Norasol just radiated that kind of glow of pleasure that spoke of having been lovingly tended to somehow. And her hair was clearly just-washed and glossy, the way it hadn’t been before in the whole time Shara had known her. Just like Kes, being planetside suited her and made her beautiful in a whole dimension Shara hadn’t known had been missing.

Shara wondered if she’d have the reverse happen to her; she was so used to being in space, maybe she’d grow duller here. She didn’t like the thought of it.

“The accommodations were to your liking?” Norasol asked.

“Oh,” Shara said, “yes, it’s nice to have a little room to yourself like that. It’s so long since I spent any time on a planet— real air is one of those things you don’t realize how much you appreciate until a time like this.”

Norasol laughed, a bright and happy sound she hadn’t made before. “Oh, that’s exactly it,” she said.

Lita was stirring something briskly in a pot. Shara looked surreptitiously around, trying to spot if there was a carafe or a caf machine or anything obvious. She’d cut way down on her caf consumption, since stimulants and fetuses were apparently encouraged to mix as little as possible, but she still hadn’t managed to cut it out entirely. Just a little in the mornings, especially after a disorienting trip like that. Her body was still about four hours off from this timezone, and thought it was the middle of the night, but they’d gone to bed at what for them had been early evening. Only being exhausted had made it possible.

“Am I up before Kes?” Shara asked, sitting down at the table next to Norasol. It was a sunny little kitchen space, cobbled together from salvage like everything else, but well put-together, with a big conservator and an industrial-style galley range clearly pulled from a spacecraft of some kind. The table was welded together out of odd parts that had been skillfully sanded into a harmonious shape, and the walls were insulated with carefully pieced-together hunks of board all painted in bright colors in a pattern that somewhat obscured the seams where they’d been stuck together with excessive adhesive. The corners were decorated with repeating patterns that looked a little like the sigils you saw decorating some of the Frontera spacecraft cockpits, and there were bundles of herbs hung in pleasant little arrangements here and there.

Most importantly, there was seating for about two dozen people, and the table extended into the next room to accommodate this. There were currently crates stacked on it, and it was clear most of it went unused most of the time, but obviously, there were a lot of people who called this place home, and sometimes they were all here.

Before either of the women could answer, another woman came in the door, shucking heavy boots as she stepped in. She was young, and Shara hadn’t seen her before. “Morning,” she said; black-haired, dark-eyed, she bore a passing resemblance to the other two women.

“You’re done already?” Lita asked, surprised.

The woman laughed. “Kes was out there, so he and Ori went up to the chanticlos,” she said, going to the sink and washing her hands thoroughly.

“Kes is already up,” Norasol said. “I wouldn’t have expected that!”

“He wasn’t really awake?” the woman said. “He just— I think he went out there out of sheer force of habit in his sleep, because when I asked him what he was doing, he seemed to have no idea.”

“My sweet boy,” Lita said, laughing. “I’m sure it’s not the first time he’s done chores in his sleep.”

“So, I took advantage of it and sent him off with Ori, and did the cavras myself down here. I broke the news to him, by the way, that we need to process the birds. He was so pleased we’d saved them for him,” the woman said, and she went to a cupboard and got down some mugs. Shara perked up, watching her: mugs were a good sign, in all her experience, of impending caf.

“Really?” Lita asked, pausing in her stirring to look at the younger woman.

“No,” the woman said, with a bright slightly-squeaky laugh, arresting in its genuineness. “No, of course not, he was annoyed that we’d saved them for him.”

“Well, what did he expect?” Norasol said. “You’ve had so few people here, when were you going to do them?”

“Exactly,” the woman said. She turned, and looked at Shara, and gestured with a mug. Shara nodded, trying not to look too eager, and the woman got down another mug from the cabinet and put them on the counter next to Lita. Lita poured skillfully from the pot she’d been stirring into each of the mugs, and the woman brought three of them over to the table, holding one between the others with a practiced air. “Hi, by the way, I’m Marita.”

“Shara,” Shara said, and took the mug with a polite smile. This was clearly not caf; it had been a thick liquid as Lita had poured it, and too light in color. Well, it was something at least. It smelled vaguely sweet, with a bright note of flavoring to it. “I didn’t understand when you were saying what Kes was doing in his sleep,” she said, mustering her composure for the task.

“Oh,” Marita said, “chores.” She sat down at the table across from Shara, next to Norasol. She was wearing practical work clothes, somewhat dirt-stained, and had a grubby swatch of cloth tied over her hair. “In the morning, you have to feed the livestock and collect the eggs and so on. He said you were a spacer, I should’ve figured you’re not used to that kind of thing.”

“Probably an understatement,” Shara admitted. “I— Kes tried to kind of, prepare me for what it was going to be like here, but I expect it will be hilarious for all of you when I go outside and see the— livestock.” It was sort of hard to even say it.

“Oh,” Marita said with a laugh, and reached over to put her hand on Shara’s arm, “we won’t be mean about it, though!”

She seemed very earnest, and Shara smiled at her a little hesitantly. It— it _mattered_ whether these people liked her, and she wasn’t sure what to do about that. Kes had a big family and they were all important to him and if they thought she was some useless spacer that they had to be polite to— well, she didn’t know what she would do.

“Of course not,” Norasol said. “We are going to make you help, though.”

Shara grimaced, turning her mug between her hands. “I don’t know how useful I’ll be,” she said, “but I’ll do my best.”

“That’s the spirit, dear,” Norasol said, patting her arm.

Sento shuffled into the room, looking old and tired and exhausted, and Shara regarded him in some alarm. “Papa,” she said.

He squinted at her, then came over and dropped into the seat next to hers, and stole her mug. “No talky,” he said, “only caf,” and took a swig from the mug before she could say anything.

Everyone paused, and he went still, then slowly brought the mug back down. “That is not caf,” he said. “What— the hell is that?”

No one else answered, and Shara admitted, “I don’t actually know, I was too shy to ask.”

Everyone laughed. “It’s atole,” Norasol said, “we drink that instead here.”

The door opened and the teenaged boy from last night came stumbling in, shedding his boots clumsily. Ollie? Orie? Ori, Shara remembered. “Mari,” he said, “did you do the cavras?”

“I did,” she said.

The boy went back to the door, opened it, and hollered, “She already did ‘em!”

Someone answered back with an indistinct yell, and Ori let the door shut and came in, unfastening his coveralls and taking them off too. They were filthy, and he hung them on a peg next to the other outerwear in the entryway. Everyone going shoeless indoors was probably the strangest thing about this place, Shara was coming to recognize. Not even slippers, but if there was no freezing-cold under-insulated decking to worry about, it made sense. And what with it being a place that had dirt, it made sense; shed the outdoor footwear, leave the dirt at the door, keep the floors clean. But it was such an alien concept; she’d never really lived anywhere with actual dirt. It was going to take getting used to.

She felt naked without shoes on. It was really getting to her.

“I might die if there’s no caf,” Sento said, and she realized he’d been sitting next to her staring in quiet horror into the mug.

In curiosity, she took a sip. The liquid was really thick, almost a gel, and it was rich and quite sweet, with a sweet-spiced bite. It was also really hot. “I wasn’t going to kick up a fuss,” Shara said, “but Papa, I thought you were cutting back on that stuff.”

“I have never cut back on that stuff a day in my life,” Sento said. “You must be thinking of your other Papa.”

“My spare Papa,” she said. “The one who is moderate about caf and never drinks and is always nice to me.”

“Where are the eggs, Ori?” Lita asked calmly, and Ori stopped short in the doorway, looking chagrined.

“Oh,” he said. “Uhhh—“

The door opened. “You forgot the eggs, Ori,” Kes said, grinning, and he stepped through carrying a big wire basket in each hand.

Shara couldn’t help but stare. He was wearing grubby coveralls, too, sleeveless ones over a thin clinging undershirt, and bulky boots, and he kind of looked like something out of a holonovela; unlike the boy, the coveralls set off how wide his shoulders were, and the boots how long his legs were, and the baskets were heavy enough that his arm muscles were all tensed to lift them. He looked good enough to eat, and she forgot what she’d been going to say.

The boy broke the spell by nearly tripping over himself to take the baskets, and Kes pulled them backward. “Hey,” he said. “I didn’t carry these this far for you to break them. I’ll get them, go on.” He set the baskets down and started working his foot out of his boot.

Ori went toward the table, and Marita and Lita made identical noises of disapproval, and said “wash your hands!” nearly in unison. Kes was laughing at the boy.

“You’ll need your spare Papa,” Sento said mournfully, picking up the conversation again like nothing had happened. “I hope you enjoy him.”

“We’ll get you through this hardship somehow,” Shara said, a little tartly. She wasn’t comfortable enough here to be melodramatic.

Lita had moved from the stove and was looking through cupboards. “With all the people who come through here, you’d think I’d have such a thing,” she said, “but I don’t think we have any in the house. I didn’t think of it!”

“I’ll try to die quietly,” Sento said.

“Don’t be an _ass_ , Papa,” Shara said quietly. It was rude to press the point like this, and she was starting to get embarrassed. But. She did understand his pain. She’d probably get a headache later if she didn’t have any. He certainly would. Her whole life he’d never gone a day without a cup of caf.

Kes stopped where he was. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Oh,” Lita said, “I don’t have any caf.”

“Shit,” Kes said, and jammed his foot back into his boot. “I thought of that, I did. Hang on.” And he went back out the door.

Marita stood up and went over to retrieve the baskets, and carried them over into the next room. “How many do you want for this morning, Lita?” she asked.

Shara was preoccupied by Kes having left. “Where,” she said, and stood up. Heck with it, she was following him out. She went over and shoved her feet awkwardly into her shoes. She wasn’t used to putting them on and taking them off. Everyone here had boots they could just step into and stomp to seat them, and she only had ones with laces or buckles or elaborate fasteners. She’d just never thought of it.

She got them on well enough, and went out the door. “Kes?”

“Down here,” he called, and she went down the steps and found him in the little docking bay thing, kind of a hollow under part of the house where the speeder was, and where their luggage containers had gotten stowed.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I bought caf,” Kes said, “to bring, because I knew you guys drink it and I knew there wouldn’t be any here.”

He had pried one of the containers open and was digging through it. The coveralls had no sleeves, just shoulder straps, so they showed off a lot of the muscles of his back through the thin shirt he had on underneath, and she had to come up behind him and put her arms around him.

“Hi,” he said, turning in her grip, and he was clutching a box in one hand, and smiling at her.

She pulled him down by the back of his neck, and kissed him sweetly. “Hi,” she said. “You look like the farmer in a porno I saw once.”

“You saw a porno about farmers?” Kes looked interested. “I never saw something like that.”

“It was super hot,” she said. “You’re super hot, you know.”

He laughed, just a little shy like he often was when praised, and she kissed him because he was so pretty like that. He returned the kiss, and his free hand at the small of her back felt really good, better than anything had today. “I want to stay out here and make out with you,” he said, “but I think I’d better go and make your father some caf so he doesn’t die.”

She kissed him once more, then let go, and went back up the stairs with him behind her.

“Did you think Kes would need help unloading a heavy box?” Marita asked as they came back in. Oh, she definitely knew what was up, she was eyeing them with an unsubtle air of speculation.

“I’m just concerned for my honored father,” Shara said. “Who in his feeble age is confronted with such a travail.” She could be a dork about it now that she knew it was all right.

Kes freed himself from his boots and stepped in past her with the box, setting it down on the counter. She managed to struggle free of her shoes.

Kes was washing his hands. “Take your dirty coveralls off,” Marita said.

Kes continued washing his hands, and said, over his shoulder, “I got dressed fast asleep this morning, I don’t think you want to see me in what I’m wearing under these.”

“Are you for real?” Marita exclaimed, laughing. She had a really shrill laugh, and Shara quite liked it.

“Totally forgot to put pants on,” Kes said. “Realized it all the way up the hill. Not taking these off, sorry. They’re not that dirty.”

For some reason, Marita looked at Shara, and Shara had no idea what expression she was supposed to have, so she just looked blank and tried not to think about the fact that Kes had probably slept in his underwear and looked really cute like that.

Kes pried open the box and pulled out a little caf machine, the kind that you had to boil the water separately to use, and a bag of caf grounds. Shara peered over his shoulder, and the box was just stuffed full of more bags. “How much did you buy,” she asked, delighted. There was more coffee here than any human could drink in half a year.

“I have no idea how much is a normal amount,” he said, and pulled the carafe part out of the caf machine to wash it. “For all I know that’s a two-day supply.”

Sento appeared over Shara’s shoulder, and said, “Three days,” and everyone laughed.

Shara took over assembling the caf machine. Lita was cooking something. It took Shara a few moments of absent half-attention to notice that those things on the counter were— there were small oval things, palm-sized, and Shara had dismissed them as appliance parts or something, but then Lita picked them up and hit them on the edge of the bowl and broke them, one after another.

Shara stared for a moment at the empty— shell things, some sort of gel had come out of them, bright yellow in part and clear in others, kind of lumpy. Lita was whisking them around into a frothy yellow substance in the bowl.

“Something wrong, dear?” Lita said finally, and Shara realized she’d been staring.

“What is that?” she asked, and reached out in uneasy fascination to poke at one of the emptied shells. “What— are these?”

“Eggs,” Lita said, perfectly neutral.

Shara knew what eggs were, she’d had eggs before. They were a powder. She clearly was missing something. It was such odd packaging, to put them into a container you had to break to get them out. Unless the containers were reusable? She picked one up. It hadn’t fractured along any lines, and little fragments were clinging to an inner waterproof membrane of some kind.

She glanced over at Sento, who had torn himself away from his rapt contemplation of the caf machine to join her puzzled contemplation of the inexplicable packaging. Why would it come in gel format? The water would add a lot of extra weight that would make them expensive to transport.

“You weren’t kidding,” Marita said to Kes, then turned to Shara and asked, “You guys have never seen eggs before?”

“We have eggs all the time,” Sento said. His expression shifted. “Are you telling me this is— well, fuck.”

“What,” Shara said, recognizing that expression. He got it, but she didn’t yet. She was still missing something. “What?”

“This is how they come out of the bird,” Lita said. “Marita, how would they ever have seen this before? Nobody’s exporting eggs in the shell. You know fine well we dehydrate them here before we ever sell them.”

“I guess I never thought of that,” Marita said.

“They come out of the,” Shara said, and stopped talking. She’d already said too much. All her life-long lessons about being vulnerable in new places, and she’d forgotten all about them because a boy was cute.

“That’s fucked-up,” Sento said. “I tell you what, that’s fucked-up. What’s the container made of? It’s like a bone or something! That is fucked-up.”

It defused the tension. Everyone laughed, and Marita said, “Ori, can you go tell Yaya and the kids it’s time to eat?”

 

______

 

Lita wasn’t a fool. She could tell that Kes was gone on the girl. The girl was a little cannier than him, a little better at keeping herself to herself, but it wasn’t difficult to catch her watching Kes. Usually she had her expression under control, but it didn’t take a genius to work out what she could be thinking. It wasn’t just a mother’s pride that made Kes beautiful in Lita’s eyes: he had filled out a little, had grown into his gangly limbs, and he was a man now, a really attractive one. He looked like his father, had inherited the man’s considerable stature, but Lita indulged herself in the belief that, around the mouth, he more resembled her own long-missing, dearly-beloved brother. It didn’t matter; he was beautiful.

Norasol had diplomatically declined to speak on the matter. It wasn’t proper. Kes had to be the first to state his intentions, and he had to wait until everyone was assembled. Properly Shara’s mother should speak to Lita, but clearly she didn’t have one.

Lita wasn’t surprised, though, when as she was preparing for the noonday meal, Sento sidled into the kitchen. “That’s more sunshine than I’ve seen in a long time,” he said, wiping his brow with shirt sleeve and leaning against the counter.

Lita grinned at him. “It’s a nice yellow sun on this planet,” she said. “Climate’s not quite right, location’s terrible, local politics are pretty reprehensible, but for a temporary haven, it suits.”

“I feel like there’s no good places under the Empire,” Sento said.

“That’s for sure,” Lita said, emptying the bowl of bean shells into the compost bucket. “That’s for damn sure.” She checked the various pots on the stove, stirring each, and then tipped the shelled beans into the waiting, boiling pot, gave it a stir, thwacked the spoon on the edge to clear it, and set it down on the spoon rest. She wiped her hands on her apron and turned to Sento. “Have you come to ask me what the hell is going on?”

“I have,” Sento said.

“Your girl, and my boy, yes?” Lita said.

“Yeah,” Sento said.

“There’s a traditional way we do these things,” Lita said. “So this conversation is off the record, all right?”

“I don’t know anything about traditions,” Sento said. “I come from nobody, I raised my girl myself without anybody’s help or traditions or whatever, all I know is what I figured out the hard way and what she taught me, all right? And she’s a good girl and we do our best but I don’t know how to do this right and I don’t want to fuck things up for her.”

He was upset, a little, but Lita understood, and her last shreds of doubt evaporated. “Oh,” she said, “of course.” She let go of her apron. “Can I hug you?”

“Sure,” Sento said, and she wrapped her arms around him and took his measure. He was wiry and strong and gentle, and Lita decided she certainly liked him.

“So,” she said, stepping back a little and putting her hands on his upper arms for a moment. “So, let me explain it quick, so we can start from the same place.” The lid on the beans rattled and she turned and bent to look at the burner and adjust it. “The whole point of tradition is how to make sure that nobody in the family is left out. When you have a big family and you want to keep a big close family you have to do things the long way around, always, just to make sure everybody gets a chance to feel involved and have their say. That’s all it’s really about. That’s what we want. And it’s harder since we’re never all in one place at one time. That’s why we have a big to-do for things like weddings, because it’s an excuse to get everybody in one place at one time.”

Sento leaned against the counter, looking both guarded and wistful. “I never had a wedding,” he said. “I never knew what the deal was.”

“That’s it,” Lita said. She reached out and patted his shoulder. “I never had a wedding either,” she said. “But we had a big party when Kes was named.”

“Is it going to be a problem?” Sento asked, fidgeting with a protruding welded seam at the edge of the counter. “That there’s-- no family on our side. It’s just me. I’m the dad and the mom and everything. That’s all there is.”

“No,” Lita said, “no, that’s not important. It makes it easier, really.” She got down her seasoning jars and set about adjusting the flavorings, retrieving the citro from the conservator. “She seems like a strong and smart woman,” she said.

“She’s smart,” Sento said, “mostly, but she’s never had a lover who stood up to her about anything, and I worry that Kes won’t.”

“I’m sure Norasol is convinced she’ll eat our baby boy alive,” Lita said, “but, for the record, Norasol always underestimated Kes’s father, too. Kes is stronger than he looks. If she eats him alive it’s because he wants her to.”

Sento let out a bark of laughter. “He wants her to,” he echoed.

“Well?” Lita shrugged. “Kes is not really the helpless, passive sort. He’s very good at being patient and accepting but that’s not the same thing. If he’s bared his throat to her it’s because he wants to know what she’ll do.”

Sento considered that. “Huh,” he said. Lita tasted each of the pots one last time, making her final decisions about the seasonings. “Well,” Sento went on in a moment, “I think the baby is a complicating factor, anyway.”

Lita frowned, and put her spoon down carefully, turning to look at Sento; she had no idea what he could be talking about. “Whose baby?”

“Ah,” Sento said, eyebrows climbing, and then he looked down and away, grimacing, and it became clear.

Somehow, this was not something Lita had in any way prepared herself for. She blinked, breathed out, breathed in deeply, let it out slowly. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, I have to— I’m not supposed to—”

“This conversation is off the record and I didn’t say _anything_ ,” Sento said.

“I,” Lita said. She was not ready for this. She was— she had assumed Kes would talk to her about this before— she really really _really_ had not expected her dutiful and obedient son to just go out and start a family, and she really hadn’t expected Norasol to preside over the whole thing without checking in at least once, and mostly she just wasn’t mentally prepared for grandmotherhood.

Sento pulled a chair over and offered it to her, and she sat in it before she could think better of it. “You seem upset,” he said.

“I’m not ready for that,” she said. “I didn’t expect that.”

“Neither did they,” Sento said wryly.

The door opened with a clatter and Kes came in, thumping his boot heels against the edge of the step up from the entryway to pull them off. “Oh, Mama,” Kes said, “that smells amazing,” and then turned and saw her and stopped dead.

“Mama,” he said in alarm, crossing the kitchen and kneeling solicitously next to her, “Mama, what’s wrong, should I get Norasol?”

Lita laughed weakly and put her hand to his face; he was so utterly stricken with concern. He was still her sweet boy. “No, no, it’s okay,” and she pulled Kes closer, pulling his head into her chest in an embrace. “Baby boy. We’re still going to do this the right way, but Sento just mentioned the complication.”

“The compli—” Kes looked up at her, eyebrows pinched together in confusion, and then his expression flickered with realization, cleared to resignation, and he finally smiled shyly, uncertainly. “Oh, Mama.”

She pulled his head back against her chest. He hadn’t done it on purpose. He hadn’t set out intentionally to exclude her. This wasn’t some kind of conspiracy Norasol was in on. Lita breathed deeply, breathing in her son’s familiar scent. She had spent too long in politics. “My sweet boy,” she murmured. “We’ll have to talk about it after we’ve done the formal wedding things. But I see we’ll have to hurry.”

“There’s some time, Mama,” Kes said. “But no, not a lot.”

“Uni and Tito are back tonight,” Lita said. “You should probably address us at dinner. We’ll have the kids stay up for it.”

Kes pulled away and looked up at her to nod. “Okay,” he said seriously. His gaze flicked over to the stove. “I think the beans need stirring, Mama.” He climbed to his feet. “I’d do it but my hands are dirty.”

Lita collected herself. “Just turn them off,” she said. “Everything’s ready, it can just sit until it’s time to eat.”


	2. Quickening

 

Uni and Tito arrived on schedule, with Rakshon and Salah, both non-Oaxctli trusted comrades from the Fronteras work crew, who’d both been to the compound before. Kes had run over his own schedule a little bit, and was still in the ‘fresher, nervously regarding himself in the mirror and trying to compose himself. He hadn’t been able to exactly prepare Shara for this, because that wasn’t how this worked, and he knew it wasn’t fair— he’d tried to indirectly hint to her what was going to happen, but he didn’t know if she’d understood him. 

It didn’t matter; she had more self-possession in her little finger than he did in his whole body, so surely she’d be fine. But still. She might react poorly, and then he’d look like an idiot. 

He was brooding over this and had just finished shaving when the door banged open, startling him badly. 

“Kes you asshole,” Tito said, delighted with himself; Kes had flung himself clear across the tiny room with the power of his startle reflex, nearly losing the towel that was his current sole garment. “You’re pretty enough, you don’t need to spend all day in here.”

“Get in here,” Kes said, relieved; Tito was two years older than he was and had successfully managed to convince a woman to marry him the previous year, and last Kes had heard that was still going well. At the very least, it had initially worked, and that was what Kes was currently concerned with. He grabbed Tito by the arm and shut the door behind him, and only then fixed his towel. 

“Whoa,” Tito said, “I didn’t— I didn’t think you felt this way, Kes—“

“Shut up,” Kes said, “we’re cousins, that’s gross.” Tito was Kes’s father’s brother’s son, so they were first cousins. He was about the only link Kes had to his father’s family at all. 

“Well, ah,” Tito said, grinning broadly, gesturing at the small room. “I just don’t know what you mean by this.”

“Shh,” Kes said. “Listen to me, shithead. Did you see the girl that’s here?”

“No,” Tito said, perking up. “Girl?”

“You’re  _ married _ , dickwad,” Kes said, punching his arm. “Anyway shut up. I’m marrying that girl and she and I already worked it out but Norasol is insisting I gotta do it right.”

“You!” Tito said, astonished. “You’re marrying a girl!”

“Keep your fuckin’ voice down,” Kes said. “Xacristo, I can’t rely on you for anything, what is the point of asking—“

“Shh,” Tito said, laughing, “stars, man, you’re so dramatic. Shh. Hey. Fine. Really though? For real you’re marrying a girl? You’re like,  _ nine _ , Kes.”

“I’m twenty-one,” Kes said. 

“Next month,” Tito corrected him. 

“Whatever,” Kes said, exasperated. “You married a girl who isn’t from here, what did you do?” He remembered the festival dinner, when Tito and Zia had done the ritual. Zia had seemed to figure it out pretty well.

“I rehearsed it with her,” Tito said. “I’m not crazy, I wasn’t going to take a chance on her just— I don’t know, figuring it out. That’s asking a lot.”

“Fuck,” Kes said. “Norasol told me it would be unspeakable bad luck to tell her anything. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Aw,” Tito said awkwardly, uncomfortable enough to be genuine, “I’m, uh, I’m sure it’ll be fine."

"What the fuck are you pipsqueaks doing in there?" Uni asked from the corridor. "Can I come in and pee or are you, I don't know, what are you doing?"

Kes scrubbed his face with both hands. "Fuck," he said, "I'm so fucked." He opened the door. "I was just— nothing, Uni." 

Uni looked between the two of them suspiciously. He was a big guy in his mid-forties, related to Tito’s mother, and so of no notable blood relation to Kes at all. He wasn’t particularly witty or good-natured, but he was strong as anything and mostly never got tired as long as he had enough to eat. So, boring company, but great to be on a work crew with. Unfortunately he liked to drink, too, so they only tended to send him out with the steadier folks; Kes was considered too young to be trusted with him, and that suited Kes fine. 

“You kids are always up to something,” Uni said. 

“I mean,” Tito said, “yeah,” and clapped him on the shoulder, following Kes down the hall.  He came into Kes’s bedroom with him, and immediately went over to his bed, where Kes had laid out the outfit he was planning to wear. “No,” Tito said, “no no.”

“It’s the nicest shirt I own,” Kes said, rolling his eyes. “You have no fashion sense, don’t start with this.”

“I know I have no fashion sense,” Tito said, “but I also know that shirt looks dumb on you. Tell me about this girl and I’ll loan you one of mine, you can’t do the formal statement of intent dressed like a hayseed.”

Kes sighed. It was his best option. “Fine,” he said. “She’s a pilot, she’s here with her dad, her dad’s her only family, they’re both pilots, they work with Fronteras but they’re not members.”

“Okay that tells me like, nothing,” Tito said. “Is she funny? Is she cute? Is she tall?”

“You’ll meet her in ten minutes,” Kes said, “and you can make up your own mind.” 

“Is she a Basico?” Tito asked, squinting. “I don’t know how polite I could be but for you, man—“

“No,” Kes said. He’d never actually thought about that, though. “I actually— we met because I was yelling at Etto’s brother Fas, in Iberican, and she was just passing by and answered back.”

“That tells me something,” Tito said. “Fine, I’ll loan you a shirt. And you said she doesn’t have any family?”

“Just her dad,” Kes said. 

Tito nodded. “That means there’s no mom to speak to your mother beforehand,” he pointed out. “That’s the usual thing.”

“Oh,” Kes said. Of course that was the usual thing. “Shit.” But he thought it over a moment. “No, her papa was talking to Lita, though, at lunch. She’s filled him in, for sure.”

“But there’s no woman to speak for her,” Tito elaborated patiently. “ _ Your _ kinfolks can’t do it. That cuts out almost everyone here.”

Kes was related by blood or upbringing to every woman here, just about. “Oh,” he said. 

Tito sighed. “I’ll get Zia to do it,” he said. 

Kes brightened. “She’s here?” He liked Tito’s wife Zia a lot, and what’s more, he figured she was probably going to be an excellent example to Shara of someone who wasn’t crazy and had also managed to figure out what to do around here.

“Yeah,” Tito said, “she caught up with us on the way here.” 

“Phenomenal,” Kes said, and Tito rolled his eyes at him as he went to the door.

“I don’t know what you’d do without me,” he said. 

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Kes agreed. 

 

______

  
  


“It’s a formal thing, I think,” Sento said, shaking his head doubtfully. “Lita kind of tried to explain it but I don’t really know what’s supposed to be happening.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t Kes explain that to  _ me _ , then?” Shara groused, discarding yet another pair of pants that wouldn’t do up. She owned nothing decent for a fancy dinner that would actually go over her midsection, which she still didn’t think was obvious but was definitely thicker than it ought to be. She was going to have to start dressing like them out here, in skirts and dresses and things, she didn’t know what else to do. 

“I don’t know,” Sento said. “I think there’s some kind of superstition about it.”

“But at least he could warn me,” Shara said. She was getting really frazzled. This was not okay. She had not come here to fucking  _ guess _ what was going on. Also she had seen an enormous amount of animal shit today and it was messing with her mind. She wasn’t a bumpkin, she knew where food came from, but she could have quite happily gone her whole life without smelling a cavra on the hoof. This was— she was biting off a lot, here, and maybe it wasn’t more than she could chew but maybe it was more than she wanted to chew right now, especially when strong odors made her so nauseous. (It was happening less, not at all this last week or so, but she still didn’t trust her stomach. Morning sickness had been  _ some bullshit _ , all right.)

Someone scratched at the door, and Shara pulled her dressing gown shut and went and answered it, making herself open the door with a polite neutral expression instead of yelling that it had better be Kes. 

Which was good, because it wasn’t Kes, it was a lovely young dark-skinned woman with close-cropped hair and large hoop earrings, gold dots tattooed across the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones, and she said, “You must be Shara.”

“I am,” Shara said. 

“I’m Zia,” she said, “I’m married to Kes’s cousin Tito. You haven’t met him yet, don’t look so horrified.”

“I’m not horrified,” Shara said, scraping control of her expression. “I’m not—“

Zia laughed, waving her off. “I figured as a fellow outsider to this madness I better stop by and make sure you’re up to speed on the weird stuff they get up to around here.”

“Please,” Shara said, and gestured her in. “Zia, Sento, Sento’s my papa.”

“Hi,” Sento said. “Thank the stars you’re here, what the fuck is going on?”

Zia laughed, and it was a sparkling bright sound like the nav computer kicking on in a Traj-class freighter. The women around here laughed freely, and Shara felt strange to notice it. How did she herself laugh? She didn’t know. “You got the Norasol special, didn’t you?”

“What is her _ deal _ ?” Shara hissed. 

“Nobody really knows what her deal is,” Zia said. “Don’t worry about it. She is who she is, you get used to it. Whatever her deal is, it’s the real deal. The thing is. You can’t just— do things, around here. There are so many people and they’re so spread out that you have to follow all these weird old traditions to get anything done. But they’re really reasonable people, under all that.”

“Okay,” Shara said. 

“So tonight, the deal is, Kes has to formally notify everyone that he intends to marry you,” Zia said. 

“Oh, shit,” Shara said. “Why couldn’t he fucking warn me? What do I have to do? I don’t know what I have to do!”

“Relax,” Zia said, laughing again. Sento gestured, and she came and sat next to him on the bed. Shara realized she was pacing, and made herself stop. “That’s what I’m here to tell you.” 

 

______

  
  


Lita took pity on Kes, and didn’t make him sit through half of dinner with it all flavorless and thick in his mouth with his nervousness. They hadn’t even finished getting the food on the table, Marita still running back and forth to the counter with the little condiments, when Lita put her hands together and said, “So, we have a lot of things to talk about since we have a quorum of us together for the first time in a long time, but Kes probably wants to go first, so I’m going to get us started and hand it over to him.”

“Will we need to be drinking to anything?” Marita asked, coming over with the final item: the pitcher of kal. Of course she knew, Kes thought: surely,  _ surely _ she knew, because she was largely in charge of the kids and they were being allowed to stay up late. Although the dinner was nominally just because so many of them were home.

“Certainly,” Lita said, mouth curving in a sly smile. “Sit down, sit down.” She went around the table, saying everyone’s name, including the children. They’d gathered quite a crowd, with Rakshon and Sallah, Uni and Tito and Zia, Lita and Marita and Yaya and the five children currently living in the compound, plus an assortment of neighbors from the nearby settlement and a couple of other assorted friends. None of it was particularly formal; it was a big deal to be told where the compound was, but once you knew, you could come and go as you pleased, you just couldn’t bring anyone else or tell anyone else without the permission of one of the Oaxctli. Most of the hangers-on were Fronteras work crew members, and many of them were Xicul diaspora, from the migrants who’d left during the long slow years of death before the planet’s final collapse.

Kes listened absently, so nervous he couldn’t even look at Shara. She was sitting next to Zia, that was the important thing, and Zia had murmured beforehand to Kes that she would play the ceremonial role of Shara’s mother, just because she knew the words. She’d gone over the concepts with Sento, but Sento felt too insecure about it to do it, so she’d stepped up. 

(“Sometimes us outsiders gotta stick together a little,” Zia had said sweetly, and winked at Kes. “By the way that shirt looks better on you than on my husband, don’t tell him I said that.”)

“So here we are together,” Lita concluded, “and we are all grateful for that. We take a moment to think of those who are not together with us, and keep them in our hearts.” She put her hand over her chest, and Kes’s memory filled in the list she sometimes would rattle off, the names of her father and sister and brother, who had been taken before the collapse. They were among the Missing, and Lita insisted they were alive somewhere, and Norasol was sure they had been instantly shot and thrown in a ditch, and no one would ever know. 

But life went on, was the thing. “So let us enjoy what we can,” Lita said, “and enjoy one another while we can be together. The pataba harvest was enough that we have seed roots for next year and enough to eat tonight, that’s in the blue dish, please take small helpings though, I’m not sure there’s enough to go around— and I made the green sauce you like, Uni, it’s there—“ she pointed— “it’s quite spicy, everyone else, so I’d recommend caution. Get that pitcher started around, everyone needs some.” 

Tito was sitting next to Kes, and made much of filling Kes’s glass full, but didn’t interrupt Lita. “Then,” Lita said, looking around the table with apparent satisfaction. “Let us begin. Kes has something he wants to say.”

Kes pushed himself to his feet, feeling like his legs were about eight miles long, and took a slow, deep breath. He’d never made it to this point before. He’d been serious about his last girlfriend, but she hadn’t been serious about him, and fortunately he’d figured that out before he’d even really started considering this. Everyone else had figured it out long before then, especially the other guy she’d been seeing, but at least he’d been spared public embarrassment about it. He could draw on it as a learning experience, and otherwise not think about it much. This situation was nothing like that, he knew it, and that was partly why he’d let himself get into this. 

And everyone was looking at him, and that was fine, it was polite, they ought to be. Shara didn’t look worried, at least, and Zia was holding her hand, that was nice. “Um,” Kes said, but, this was his family, he didn’t really have to impress them with his public speaking skills. He cleared his throat. There was no point being fancy. “So, I intend to court Shara Bey, and I would like to marry her before the season is out.”

Marita laughed and clapped her hands in delight a little bit, and a couple of the kids reacted to that with similar actions, though most of them weren’t old enough to really understand what was going on. Lita smiled and stood up. “You are serious in this intention?” she asked. 

“I am, Mother,” he said. 

“Then let me speak to her mo— her friend,” Lita said, and turned to Zia. “What do you think of this?”

“It is not a surprise to me,” Zia said. “But I will let my friend speak for herself, and my heart is with her in this decision. Shara?”

Zia pushed at Shara a little, and Shara stood up. “I intend to marry Kes Dameron before the season’s end,” she said, smiling a little, her eyes sparkling at him as she spoke. “I, ah. I don’t know when that is, on this planet, but I hope it’s soon.”

Everyone applauded this, and Lita said, when the furor died down a little, “There’s nothing wrong with an efficient courtship.” 

Zia tugged Shara’s hand to let her know she could sit down, but Shara turned to Sento instead. “What do you think, Papa?” she asked. She had a lot more faith in Sento than he did in himself, and it was probably well-founded, Kes thought. 

“I think he makes you happy,” Sento said, “so you should do whatever means he’ll keep doing that.”

Tito got everyone pounding the table after that, and they all drank, and Kes sat down a little dizzy with relief, and Shara was smiling at him across the table, and he wanted to kiss her. In a holodrama, he’d kiss her after something like this, but that wasn’t really the tradition here. Still, though, he’d like to. 

Now that he wasn’t blind with nervousness, he could see that she was wearing a dress, which he’d never seen her do before. Oh, it was a skirt, which must be someone’s from here because it had a handwoven band decorating the hem, and a blouse of Shara’s he’d seen before, with a nice fitted leather jacket that he knew was hers. She looked stunning, but then, he was used to that. 

Uni had some business to conduct, nothing particularly  groundbreaking but important to know in future contracts. Norasol had a few things to say about troubled portents for the future and remembering to keep the pass codes a secret. 

And then it was time, once the first course was past, for the ritual questions. An assortment of people were supposed to ask each member of the couple that had stated their intentions questions, and there was supposed to be an equal representation from both sides of the family. Zia had stepped up and, Kes realized, delegated several of the wife’s-family questions to everyone present not directly related by blood to Kes.

She’d also briefed Shara on what the questions were about. Thank the stars; they weren’t hard, but if you didn’t know what someone meant, they were likely to be baffling. But it was forbidden for family of one member of the couple to rehearse with the other member of the couple, because it was too coercive. The whole point was that both parties had to be free to consider it.

Lita began it. “So, Shara,” she said, “you wish to court my son. We must be certain you are ready for it. Can you answer me a question?”

“I will do my best,” Shara said, and Kes’s heart maybe stopped, but it was one of the correct answers. 

“Can you tell me where the soul resides?” Lita asked. Kes chewed on his lip and stared into his glass so he didn’t stare at Shara.

“I know among your people there is a specific set of beliefs about this, as with many things,” Shara said, “and I beg your indulgence, because I have not been told all of your wonderful stories on these matters. But for myself I will say that I have observed the seat of the soul to be between the mind and the heart, where duty and joy intersect.”

Kes blinked and looked at her. She caught his gaze and grinned sweetly. It was a good answer and she knew it.

“This answer satisfies me,” Lita said, looking delighted, and everyone else murmured in approval, pouring another round of drinks and generally making approving noises. Then silence fell, and everyone turned to Sento, who clearly had to speak next.

Sento coughed, and looked a little put-upon, but said, “Kes, you want to court my daughter. Can you answer me a question?”

“Esteemed elder,” Kes said, “you have only to ask it.”

“Elder,” Sento said, raising his eyebrows. “Hmph! Well. I guess I am.”

“It’s a phrase we use for anyone more than five days older than ourselves,” Kes said. “For what it’s worth.”

“I shouldn’t complain,” Sento said, “my hair’s going gray. Anyway. Kid, can you tell me one thing?” Kes nodded, attentive. “How do you treat a woman right?”

It wasn’t one of the usual, ritual questions, and a couple of people murmured, shooting Kes sympathetic looks. Kes ran his tongue over his lower lip nervously. Well, it was only fair. He’d heard all the ritual questions and their acceptable answers before, and Shara hadn’t. 

“Well,” he said carefully. “You listen to her and you do your best.”

This was greeted with a smattering of commentary— Tito said “Do I have to give you the Talk?” and Kes smacked his arm— and Sento crossed his arms, sat back, and said, “That’s a good answer,” which was close enough to how it was supposed to go. 

Norasol cleared her throat, glaring at Tito with a stern enough look that Tito pretended to slouch down under the table. Norasol slowly slid her gaze off him and to Shara, settling herself forward in her chair, and said, “Shara. You wish to court my heart-son.” It was a good enough explanation of what Kes was to her, but he hadn’t thought of it that way, and it warmed him.

Maybe the amount of drink he’d had was warming him, though, so he reached for the water pitcher while nobody was looking at him. 

“I do,” Shara said, when Norasol didn’t finish her question. And she looked less poised than before, more genuine, open and sincere like she didn’t often look, and it struck Kes and he had to breathe through it. She meant it, she really did. 

“Answer me a question, then,” Norasol said, and Shara nodded, wide-eyed and serious. Norasol flicked a look at Sento, then back to Shara, and said, “How do you treat a man right?”

Shara sat back a little bit, and he could see that she was taking it seriously as she should, she wasn’t just going to parrot his answer. “I don’t have much practice,” she said. “I don’t know, in general; I’ve never felt before that it was my business to worry about it. But this man, I think, it would not be enough just to listen to him, because he doesn’t say as much as he could. I don’t think he’ll tell me what he wants. I’ll treat him right by telling him what I want, and trusting him to understand. But for him, I think I’ll have to watch him, too. And, as he said, try my best.”

“I am satisfied,” Norasol said, as if it surprised her. 

“Boy, does she know  _ you _ ,” Tito said. Kes hunched his shoulders uncomfortably; some of the others were murmuring similar things. Shara tilted her head, and he realized she was trying to catch his eye. She smiled at him again, and he made himself smile back. 

Marita cleared her throat. “Kes,” she said. “You intend to court my friend.” Oh, so they’d decided she was a distant enough relation to him that she could be deputized to Shara’s side. It was just as well, her question was likely to be terrible. He grimaced in dread, and everyone laughed. “Can you answer me a question?”

“Honored elder,” Kes said, setting his teeth in a frozen grin, “of course,” and everyone laughed again, which had been his aim. 

“I guess if she’s an elder, I can stand to be one,” Sento said. 

“She’s  _ five whole years _ older than me,” Kes told him. “One foot practically in the grave.”

Marita cleared her throat again, pretending stern indignation. Everyone shut up mock-obediently, and looked at her. “Answer me this,” she said. “What percentage of the diapers ought a new father to change after a baby is born?”

It wasn’t a traditional question either, though the precedent had already been broken so that wasn’t a surprise. “That depends,” Kes answered, “on whether someone plans to return the favor of all the diapers he changed when  _ her _ baby was new.”

“Oh, come on,” Marita said, “it was like, three diapers.”

“It was more than that,” Kes said, “but the point I’m trying to make is, you know I’m good for it. I haven’t spent so long among the Imperials that I’ve forgotten that a father has as many duties to a child as a mother does.”

Marita crossed her arms over her chest. “I am satisfied,” she said, and sat back in her seat, raising her glass. 

The rest of dinner passed in a blur, with a handful more questions from various other attendees, but none were particularly challenging and the mood was entirely mirthful now, some of the questions downright ribald. So Kes could devote more attention to the food, which deserved the attention. It was all his favorite foods, all the traditional ones, some of which were days of labor-- Lita must already have been planning on a feast tonight-- and the patabas were a little bitter, but worth savoring. They were a staple crop of the Oaxctli, but they did not grow well here. They wanted a much warmer climate, and had to be labor-intensively nurtured along just to keep them alive. They were a symbol of hope now, that they could keep them alive until they could find a better planet to plant them permanently. 

Kes had only eaten them a handful of times in his entire life, because they rarely grew well enough to produce a surplus. 

Tito kept refilling his glass, and Kes started pouring it back into Tito’s own glass when he wasn’t looking, and Shara caught on and was laughing at him. He still was getting quite a bit of alcohol, despite his efforts— but there really wasn’t any reason not to get a little tipsy, he was among family and Shara had said yes. It wasn’t that she hadn’t already, to him, in private, but it was different to say it formally like this.

He stood up to clear plates when they were finished eating the main dishes, and got slapped on the back by most everyone he went past. Everyone was up, milling around in the small space, and Tito had his guitar on the auto tuner, which was a good sign of the evening to come. The kids were starting to get wild because it was past their bedtimes, and the adults were tipsy, and it was chaos all around. 

Shara caught him around the waist, out of the crowd, and he turned and thought, well, surely nobody could object to this now, so he bent his head and kissed her like she clearly wanted him to, wrapping his arms around her waist. She slid her fingers around the back of his neck and held on. He wasn’t— well, he was a little drunk, he was tipsy, and he let himself get lost for a moment in the soft familiar slickness of her mouth. 

Tito punched him in the shoulder, and someone else whooped, and he made a point of taking his time to disentangle his mouth from Shara’s and turn his head slowly toward Tito with great dignity. “Yes?”

Tito laughed, delighted. “Nothing,” he said. “You kids!”

Kes turned back to Shara, who was smiling up at him, and he was so delighted to be touching her, to have her attention on him like this, her face warm and bright as the sun. “Was that it?” she asked. “Was that all we had to do?”

“We still have to have a wedding,” Kes said, and the curve of her face, her cheek and jaw, fit perfectly into the curve of his hand, palm and fingers, and he traced his thumb along her cheekbone and watched the festive paper lampshades’ reflections move in her irises. “But that’s just a party, it’s easy, and nobody asks any questions.”

“Are we allowed to talk about that before it happens?” Shara asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “This, it’s just so your answers are your own and I didn’t, like, trick you into saying what I wanted my family to hear, kind of.”

“It wasn’t that bad at all,” she said. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be,” he said, a little feebly. He’d certainly expected it to be worse. They’d gone easy on him. Either they thought he couldn’t handle it, or they were just being sweet. He wondered how much Lita had intervened. 

“But we did it right,” she said, frowning a little.

“We did,” he assured her, “we did.”

“You did great,” Zia said, appearing next to Shara’s shoulder, and leaning in to kiss her on the cheek Kes wasn’t cradling. He let go of her, and she turned and hugged Zia. Zia leaned in again to kiss Kes on the cheek. “Good job. Congratulations.”

Marita grabbed his arm as soon as Zia let go, and with absolutely no finesse, said “Now that’s settled, can you come clean about whether there are any more surprises lurking?”

She meant the baby, he knew that, he’d watched her notice that Shara’s jacket, while it looked nice open, certainly wouldn’t quite do up, and equally certainly was hers and not borrowed. He’d been noticing the same thing, himself, so he’d completely understood the expression on her face and the direction of her eyes’ travel. Marita was not subtle. Add on the question she’d chosen to ask-- which, asking about children was borderline rude even when it was a couple that would likely produce biological offspring-- and yeah, she wasn’t going to rest until he’d told her. She was like a pafn on a scent about things like this. 

Shara looked at her, then looked at Zia, then looked at Kes. 

“Lita knows,” Kes said, “so I guess so.”

“Is— is it a problem?” Shara asked, worried, and he could see now, she’d surely been worrying about this the whole time. 

“ _ No _ ,” he said, and put his hand around her back to pull her in and kiss her again, on her forehead, and then on her mouth. He should already have reassured her about this. He should have known she’d’ve been worried. “Oh, my love. No, it’s not a problem. There’s no ceremony or anything for this. We can just tell people, now that we’ve stated our intentions.”

Marita gave a little shriek, and jumped up and down, clapping her hands. “I knew it!” she said. 

“Knew what?” Zia asked, wide-eyed but smiling. 

“We should announce it, though,” Kes said, and people had quieted already, looking at Marita’s reaction. He kept his arm around Shara’s waist, and Shara tucked herself up against his side in a way she only very occasionally did. “Do you want to, or should I?”

“Please,” Shara said, making a go-ahead gesture with her hand. Someone made a shushing sound, and now almost everyone was looking at them. Kes caught Lita’s eye, and she looked delighted.

He took a breath. “How do I say it, though,” he said, and now everyone was looking. “Uh.”

“What a commanding orator,” Marita said. 

“Shut up,” Zia said, shoving her. 

“We’re having a baby,” Kes said, giving up on putting it gracefully. Pandemonium erupted, everyone cheering and shouting at once, and Tito grabbed Shara and spun her around like in a dance, which briefly alarmed her and then made her shriek with laughter. 

“I wondered how you talked her into it,” Uni said, pounding Kes on the back again— he was going to be bruised tomorrow, he made a note to himself not to wonder when he woke up sore— and Tito punched him in the arm and said, “You overachiever, you just had to one-up me,” and Kes said, “I always do” and got punched again, and after a while of this sort of thing he wound up with his mother’s arms around him.

“I did not get to ask you,” she said, pulling him down to kiss his face, “how far along she is.”

“Seventeen weeks yesterday,” Kes said. “I’m sure Norasol has already charted out all the star positions and all.”

“It’s a boy,” Norasol said, “I’ve known from almost the beginning. And he’s definitely going to be born on Alderaan, don’t you think?”

“I think we should ask Shara,” Kes said. 

“I did,” Norasol said, affronted. “You don’t think I’d just decide that, do you?”

“I don’t know how anything ever gets decided,” Kes said. “Marita’s baby was born here, wasn’t that okay?”

“Number one,” Norasol said, “the stars were favorable, number two, her husband was born here, and number three, we didn’t have any way of getting to Alderaan at that particular time so there wasn’t a choice.”

“Oh,” Kes said. 

“But we have more pilots now,” Norasol said, “and since Shara wasn’t born on a planet, I figure we’re better off tying the baby to your star charts.”

“She wasn’t?” Kes hadn’t known that at all.

“She was born between star systems,” Norasol said, “her charts are a nightmare, I don’t know where to even start.”

“So, Hathdar the 12 th or so,” Lita said. “We’ll make our plans. Figure on departing for Alderaan three weeks prior, barring any other signs of trouble. I’ll send Breha a comm.”

“We have a pilot,” Sento said, joining the conversation, “but do we have a craft?”

“That, we can sort out,” Lita said. “Leave that to us.” 

Around then, Tito started playing his guitar, and then there was dancing, and Kes found out that Shara was an excellent dancer. He laughed and danced until he was exhausted, until the kids had all been whisked away overstimulated and sleepy to bed, and then Shara leaned up and put her mouth right by his ear and asked, “Are we allowed to fuck?”

“We sure are,” Kes said, and she grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him, slow and langorous and exploratory, and he suddenly really wasn’t tired anymore.

“Can we go do that?” she asked, digging her fingers in a little. 

“Uh,” he said, “yeah.”

 

_____

  
  


It wasn’t just the drink, Shara had figured out, that made Kes sparkle so much, but the proximity of his family. In their context, he had blossomed into what she realized was his real self, much brighter and happier and assertive than his normal aspect. Some of them, he clearly didn’t get along with all that well, but they all still seemed to support him and love him and it was mutual. 

She’d never seen anything like it. 

Also they hit him a lot, in ways that seemed to be well-meant, but that left her worrying he’d be bruised. He didn’t seem concerned. 

He was a little drunk, she figured, as he led her down the hall away from the party (the remains of which had broken out into some hullabaloo when they’d begun to make their escape; apparently them going to go have sex now was pretty well-expected, and there was much ribald teasing that had to be endured on their way out), but he wasn’t unsteady or disoriented. 

He took her back to his room, which had apparently been his for some years now. She hadn’t been in it yet, but was relieved to see that it had a larger bed than the tiny bunk in her room. It wasn’t extravagant, but she’d actually be able to sleep if she wanted to.

It also had a big transparisteel slab for one wall, with a hatch in it that was open and letting in the outdoor air. And instead of a big light in the ceiling, there were a series of smaller lights set into the corners of the room, which gave it a really pleasant aspect. And there were a couple of big plants over by the transparent wall, in pots, with greenery crawling out over the walls. It was sort of like being outdoors. 

Kes was watching her reaction, and smiled a little shyly at her. “It’s not too bad, eh?” he said. “I worked on it a lot when I was younger.”

“It’s nice,” she said, because it was; the walls were painted in a couple of colors, stenciled patterns maybe, and the bed was tidily made, and there was a set of shelves built into one wall with an assortment of things on them, and pegs with clothes hanging from them along another wall. There was even a covering on the floor, made of, she wasn’t sure what, but it was a little bit fluffy. 

He shut the door, and she laughed in sudden delight and grabbed him by the arms to push him against the wall and kiss him. He yielded, laughing into her mouth, hands around her waist, pulling her in against his body. 

“Mm,” she said, “oh, I want-- all of you,” and she pulled away a little to push his shirt up. He pulled it the rest of the way off, having to remove his jacket with it, and she towed him over to the bed and dumped him onto it. In a matter of moments she had him entirely naked, and she shed her jacket and skirt, folding them carefully over the back of a chair, and sat on the edge of the bed in her blouse and underpants to look at him, running her hands over his body. 

He stopped trying to reach for her after she’d pushed him down a couple of times, and instead lay there, gloriously naked, and patient. “Did you want to fuck, or not?” he said, smile a little crooked with bemusement. 

“Is there a deadline?” she asked, tilting her head a little, relishing the way he was watching her so raptly even though she was still mostly clothed. 

That made him pause, and his face went a little blank, wide-eyed, and then delight crept across his features like a wave returning. “No,” he said, “we have forever.”

It was so cute she had to kiss him, and she sat with her thighs around his waist and held his head between her hands, and let him loop his arms around her hips. 

He often contemplated her body, during and after sex, and sometimes independently of it; he always had, but since she’d been pregnant he’d done it more. It was changing, so she couldn’t begrudge him the curiosity. But she’d never really returned the favor, and while his body wasn’t changing like hers was, it still had been involved in this. And he was pretty. So she wanted to look at him. 

The tattoo on his back wasn’t the only one. He had small symbols elsewhere, invariably in dark black or blue ink, crisp and sharp like they were regularly maintained. It was clear they weren’t decorative, though they did set off the smooth gold softness of his skin beautifully. 

So she let his head down against the pillow, and ran her hands down his chin-- he’d shaved in the evening, for this, and that meant that his face was as smooth as hers, presently, except for the careful little line of hair he maintained on his chin. She wondered how long he’d had it, and ran her thumb across it. “So you’re mine, then,” she said. 

It wasn’t true; he belonged to these people, in a way Shara had never belonged anywhere. And she could see the frame of it, how it ought to work. But she’d had to substitute people who were strangers to her, to perform the role of her family. She didn’t really belong.

But, he did, and he’d gone out of his way to take her into his framework. So now-- she did. If she could make herself believe that, if she could make herself into a shape that the framework could support. 

That meant something. She traced the lines of his collarbones, strong and symmetrical. He had nice shoulders, broad and powerful, lean-muscled but not bulky, and the outer edges of his collarbones connected to his shoulders in sharp points that she traced her thumbs over, sucking on her lower lip and feeling the softness of his skin slide over the sharpness of bone under the pads of her fingers. There was a sigil there, the length of her thumb, tucked up just under the ridge of his right collarbone, following it out to where it connected to the shoulder. It was dark blue and had a forked curlicue at one end, and came to a point at the other end, with a line and several dots finely picked out in the middle of the hollow symbol. 

“Yeah,” he said, shy and delighted, and she’d never get enough of that out of him, the way that curled through his mouth and moved the muscles under his eyes. 

She bent and kissed him softly, briefly, and then pushed herself farther down his body, raising herself on her knees a little so she could run her hands down his chest, feel the firmness of his sternum between the softer swells of pectoral muscle. He watched her, patient and curious, his hands moving just a little on her thighs just above her knees, attentive but not demanding. “It means what you want it to mean,” he said. She considered that, feeling for his ribs; he was lean, but stocky enough that his ribs weren’t really visible, but she could feel them just there, right under the skin, could feel the edge where his ribcage ended. There was another symbol there, on the left side under the pectoral muscle, low on his ribcage, and it was a double line that twisted back on itself, self-contained, with an oval set into it. It was black, and some of the finer lines had blurring around them like it had been old enough to be faded, and retouched over the top of the old lines.

The muscles of his abdomen were defined enough to show their shapes through the skin, a little, and she traced her finger down the valley in the middle of them, pausing at the horizontal crease that showed where his waist bent the most, immediately above his navel.

“Are you memorizing me?” he asked, tilting his head and propping it on a hand so he could look at her better. 

“Maybe,” she said. “You look at me so much, I thought it might give you an advantage.” His body tapered from his shoulders to his waist, but curved out just a little bit, again, not as much as a woman’s would, but more than some men. He didn’t taper through his waist to the hips, he was pretty much straight down from the bottom of his ribcage. If he gained weight, she thought, he would gain it here, and she ran her thumbs across his waist, and thought of him being middle-aged and putting on weight like her father-- Sento hadn’t gotten much thicker, but he’d gotten softer, his wiriness blurring a little as flesh lost elasticity. She couldn’t imagine what Kes would look like at Sento’s age. It stunned her to think of staying with him that long. But she could. 

She didn’t know how.   
She was free to try. 

“I don’t change, though,” he said. “You change every day.” And he brought his hand up, the one that wasn’t under his head, from her thigh to her waist, and slid the hem of her blouse up her hip, licking his lower lip as he did so. Her waist had begun to distinctly curve outward; anyone who knew what she’d looked like before would be starting to notice the change, but she was big-framed enough that if you hadn’t known how slender she’d been, you wouldn’t recognize her shape as obviously pregnant. That would change soon, though, Shara thought; unclothed, the shape of it was distinctively that of pregnancy.

“You change too,” she said. “But it’s slower. I haven’t known you long enough to see it.” She poked her finger into his belly button and he twitched, laughing; his navel was shallow and ever so slightly wider than it was tall, distorted by the bend-crease of his flat belly into his waist. “I will, though,” she went on. “I’ll memorize you now, so I’ll have something to compare it to.”

“You think I’ll get ugly as I get old?” he asked, mouth curling playfully. 

“No,” she said, and laughed. He didn’t have much hair on his abdomen; most of what there was started just under his navel, and she scooted herself back a little to get her legs out of the way so she could look at his hips. He had sharp lines where some muscle or other attached to the big flaring arched bone of his pelvis, she’d studied it in a holo and forgotten most of it but she knew that was what that shape was. It was also an attractive feature of human anatomy, easier to see on males than females, and she bit her tongue and traced the lines with her fingers. 

“Hm,” he said, distracted, because the lines kind of converged toward his dick, which was really interested in the proceedings; her last movement had freed it from where it had been politely and undemandingly nestled against her ass, and now it bobbed up against his belly and was starting to look a little less undemanding. 

She’d basically never seen his dick  _ not _ hard; she certainly hadn’t really been paying attention when she had. It wasn’t going to get to that state on its own at this point. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want to help get it to that state, she was just curious.

“I suppose you’d like to get on with it,” she said, amused.

“I didn’t say anything,” Kes answered, wide-eyed innocent. 

She laughed. “No,” she said, “you didn’t,” and wrapped her hand around his erection. He made a little noise and twitched his whole body gratifyingly, head rolling back a little and spine curving. She hummed in satisfaction, looking up at his face, and he grinned at her. 

“Come here,” he said, and tugged her gently down so he could push her blouse up and off, and she sat back to pull it off over her head. He got her out of the soft stretchy breastband she was wearing underneath, one of the new ones she’d picked up at the last trading port-- it would be too small too, soon, but for now it was her best-fitting breast-support garment-- and put his face between her breasts, careful and gentle, even reverent, since they were still so sensitive now. 

“Kes,” she said softly, as he got his hand down the waistband of her underwear. He kissed her, and worked his fingers expertly into her.

“Shara,” he answered, and his breathing had picked up as much as hers had, his breath warm against her neck. “Will you-- can I--”

She moaned a little; he was so good at getting her just right, at lighting up all her nerve endings. “Yes,” she said, and wriggled out of her underpants, but when he would have rolled her over, she put her hand on his chest and pushed him back down. “I want,” she said, and couldn’t remember the rest of the words to express the concept, but he caught on and helped her climb up astride him. 

“Okay,” he said, “if you insist,” and she had to kiss that knowing grin of his, had to bite at his lip a little and hold him steady as she got him lined up so she could take him into herself. He made a gratifying noise as she engulfed him, and dug his fingers into her hips. 

She used to be the kind of person, she reflected with a tiny portion of her mind while the rest of her focused exclusively on how hard she was going to come in just a minute, who could be all self-possessed and witty and quippy during sex, who could have a good time and get off and still remember her own name and often even the name of the other person or people present. She used to think herself good at this. But she’d never really been like that with him. Maybe this was some kind of deeper connection, or maybe her hindbrain was just completely in control, and  _ fuck _ , this felt  _ so fucking good _ , all her limbs were tingling and she wasn’t sure where her hands were but her body was wrapped around his dick like she was sucking it straight into her soul and he was lighting her up like a little daisy chain of explosions up her spine, and he was watching her with this sweet blank dark-eyed awe, like she was a religion or something. 

She didn’t bother keeping quiet, but cried out hoarsely as she came, shuddering and clenching around him, shivers rolling up her body in long pulls as she rode it out. He kept going, and she rode it up to another peak, and another one, losing track of all her other thoughts and functions and just hanging on. 

He was saying her name, and she spared him enough attention to notice him coming too, gasping and clinging to her like a supplicant, vulnerable and wide-eyed and his head tipped back and his throat bared to her. She flattened herself down against him and cradled him; she loved him, she would protect him, he needed her, he was hers. 

He lay in her arms with his face in her hair and breathed hard, one hand shaky around the back of her neck, one hand spread across her lower back. 

“I’m yours, baby,” she murmured, and shivered on an aftershock, clenching down around him where he was still deep in her. 

“Shara,” he panted. 

“Say it,” she said. “I’m yours.”

“I’m yours,” he echoed blurrily.

“No,” she said. That was what it was, that was what was bugging her. He didn’t believe her; she’d overheard jokes that she’d only agreed to stay with him for the baby, and while it was true, it wasn’t true like that. “I’m  _ yours _ .”

He took a slower breath, and nuzzled at her neck, near her ear. “You’re mine,” he said. 

“Yes,” she said, and laughed a little, tension going out of her chest that she hadn’t known was there. She wriggled a little; she was going to keep him inside her until he went soft, because despite the stickiness she was enjoying the closeness. “Mm. I’m yours, Kes, I said it and meant it.”

“Okay,” he whispered, sounding a little overwhelmed. 

Her pulse was slowing down but she could feel it weirdly echoing kind of off-rhythm in her abdomen, it must be one of the big arteries that went down to her legs maybe, she needed to review some anatomy holos because she didn’t know it as well as she ought to and she kept being curious about-- 

That wasn’t a heartbeat, and the realization cut through her absent ruminations.

“Kes,” she said, lifting her head a little. 

He blinked at her, sleepy and tipsy and beautiful, and now a little alarmed. “What?”

“The baby’s kicking,” she said. 

He blinked again, puzzled. “What?”

She found one of her hands and slid it between their bodies, pressing her fingers against the spot where the pulse that wasn’t a heartbeat had been fluttering. It fluttered again, clear as anything, against her fingers, and she gasped. “He’s kicking!” she said. “Give me your hand.”

Carefully, without moving either of their bodies, she managed to get Kes’s hand pressed just where hers had been. “I don’t,” he said, and she shushed him as she felt it move again. He went still, staring at nothing. 

It fluttered again, and she watched his eyes widen as he felt it. “Oh!” he said, lighting up slowly from the inside.

“That’s him,” she said, and it was one of those moments, she couldn’t think of any other ones but surely there had been; she’d hang onto this for her whole life, this perfect beautiful moment, awash in endorphins and still tingling from orgasm and with her man-- her husband, for all intents and purposes-- pressed against her and still inside her, and his beautiful face so delighted, and her baby kicking, really an alive thing now, palpably a real thing, not just a constellation of symptoms. 

Kes had tears in his eyes as he beamed up at her. “There he is,” he said. 

“That’s our baby,” Shara said, dazed with it, and kissed him. 

 

______

  
  


“It’s a damn good thing Zia took Shara under her wing like that,” Lita said, brushing out her hair.

“I was counting on it,” Norasol said, coming over and taking the brush from her. 

“You could have let literally any of us know that you were planning that,” Lita said crossly. “I was so nervous for the poor girl!”

“You can’t talk about these things,” Norasol said, smiling mysteriously into the mirror at Lita.

“Sometimes,” Lita said, “I think you’re too much.”

Norasol’s smile widened. “I’m always too much,” she said. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to space this one out a little bit and I have a feeling that once I see Rogue One, which is set at about the same time as this, I'm going to try to fold this into whatever I wind up writing out of Rogue One, so-- I may have some more cuteness about farm life, but.   
> The thing to keep in mind about this series is that while it's pretty fluffy now, we know what happens in the end. So. I'm not being a dick, and I don't like sad endings, but you know who's still around in Home Out In The Wind, and who isn't.   
> So you get to enjoy this, in vivid color, and bask in the fluffiness of it, but think of it from this perspective: This is the bright vivid now, for these people, but it's going to be sepia-toned nostalgia, in the not-too-distant future.

**Author's Note:**

> We're not going to speculate on how much farm life I've shamelessly self-inserted here. (Not just the current iteration, but when I was a teenager who could not get out of bed on time to save her life, we had chickens and horses and I was constantly being berated for oversleeping. Once, the horse let herself out and came to get me because I was so late.)  
> The chore hauler is basically real life. Actually the chore truck I was basing it on (a stick-shift mid-80s Toyota with one door that didn't shut and one door that didn't open, and mice living in the ventilation system) finally died between the time I wrote that bit and now. But don't worry, there's still an early-90s Chevy with mismatched doors and a wooden plank for a liftgate and the hood from a totally different kind of car, and a wasp's nest in the ventilation system instead of mice. It will continue to inspire the ranch's chore hauler's characterization.  
> The space chickens are really just chickens, which are absolutely tiny dinosaurs if you really look at them. The cavras, though, I'll try to do better and make be really aliens. Maybe they have tentacles. I really want to just make them be goats, but maybe goats with tentacles. I don't know anything about goats.


End file.
